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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366860">Sleeping with Ghosts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa'>Kissa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alec Lightwood-centric, Character Death, Emotional Affair, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Parabatai, Parabatai Bond, Sad with a Happy Ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:00:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec feels guilt about Jace's untimely death. Comfort comes to him in the unlikeliest form.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alec Lightwood &amp; Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood/Jace Wayland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sleeping with Ghosts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Not_Normal_One/gifts">The_Not_Normal_One</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is a sequel to Missing and was written as a request. </p><p>Based on the Eastern European belief that you don't really die until the people who loved and remember you are gone too. It's not uncommon to see people arguing with tombstones in our cemeteries, or to consult one's dead on big decisions. When food or drinks are spilled, we usually say "the ghost craved it".</p><p>In the fic, Alec is 52 and he and Magnus have been married for a hot minute. I am not tagging M*lec or any other versions because of the Fanfic Police.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> Alec was not afraid of dying. He knew it was coming, in fact he found a sort of solace in it being the only reliable certainty. <br/><br/>But he discovered that not being afraid of dying didn’t make him impervious to suffering. <br/><br/>He had known right away that half of his soul had left this world. Jace had died before, at Lake Lyn, and Alec had felt it like an immense, sharp pain that had made him weak in the knees and curl up in distress. <br/><br/>This time around, it was like a sting. As though someone pinched him by the parabatai rune under his shirt. <br/><br/>When he lifted the fabric, he saw the mark fade away. He tried to breathe, but there was no air in the room. He sat down on the nearest sofa, crouched forward, trying to make sense of what was happening. <br/><br/>Jace was gone for good. <br/><br/>He hadn’t pictured it happening like this. His heart broke into a million pieces as he contemplated how, while he had gotten everything in life - love, a husband, a family of his own - Jace had slowly unraveled and faded from life, alone and unloved-<br/><br/><em>Unloved.</em> <br/><br/>Alec felt another pang of pain shoot through him. <br/><br/>He was guilty of it. He had let himself lose sight of Jace. Once he had gotten married, he’d assumed that, since the impossible had happened (him finding love), it would only be a matter of time for Jace to also find lasting happiness. <br/><br/>Alec had loved the idea of him and Jace, as old men, sitting on the balcony at the loft, or maybe at the Institute, smoking pipe and reminiscing about their days of glory. About the times when they were The Lightwoods - them and Izzy. But that had been something he had told himself to cover for the massive guilt. <br/><br/>He had abandoned his parabatai. He had taken the love he had in his heart for Jace and he had beaten its head in and locked it in the deepest, darkest dungeon of his being, to make room for Magnus in the brightly lit top floors. <br/><br/>Magnus was safe. Magnus was <em>allowed</em>. <br/><br/>Alec had told himself, for the longest time, that doing things by the rules kept both him and Jace safe. <br/><br/>Yet now, as he realised the cost, he regretted his cowardice. But it was too late. <br/><br/>He realised he was sobbing. He was hugging a pillow to his chest and crying like he had never allowed himself to as a child and as a young teen. Curled up in the fetal position on the sofa, wrapped around the pillow, he cried until exhaustion dried his tears. <br/><br/>If Magnus had come home then, he would have surely worried. But Magnus and the kids were away for two weeks. <br/><br/>Alec didn’t know what to do with himself. The pain of the actual loss was unbearable and it was consuming him. <br/><br/>He got up and went to the runed drawer where he kept his weapons, taking out the dagger Jace had had custom made for him. He held it up and looked at it in the harsh new light of knowing this was a small shard of Jace that still lingered in his world. <br/><br/>He considered. Selfishly and in prey to the pain, he held the dagger’s pointed tip to his chest, to a place between the ribs where, if he pressed just the slightest bit, the grace-infused blade would go through his flesh like a hot knife through butter. <br/><br/>“Don’t you fucking dare.” <br/><br/>Alec heard the voice clearly, a voice he would have known anywhere. <br/><br/>He looked up and there he was, Jace, young and beautiful and nineteen, like that night long ago. He was also glowing golden all over. <br/><br/>Alec put the dagger down and ran to his parabatai, hugging him. But his arms wrapped around thin air. <br/><br/>“Ah, I was gonna warn you about that.” <br/><br/>“You died, Jace. I felt it!”<br/><br/>“Yeah, in hindsight, not my wisest decision. Plot twist: when you die, you don’t get to fuck off to meet the angels or whatever else there is. If there is love tying you to someone alive, you have to wait around until they die too. So, you’re stuck with me. But this time you can’t shut me down, send me away or ignore me.” <br/><br/>“Jace, I don’t care. If it means I get to keep having you around, even if just this way…” <br/><br/>“Of all the people in the world, I knew you’d be the one to take ghosts existing as grand news.” <br/><br/>“What if you’re not a ghost? What if it’s the parabatai bond?” <br/><br/>“Yeah, that one’s gone. And I am, guaranteed, a hundred per cent, certified and organic ghost. I’m going to be watching you masturbate. Or maybe I’ll possess you while Magnus-” <br/><br/>“You will have to wait long and hard for any of that to happen.” Alec said, not minding Jace’s less than noble intentions. “What is sex, exactly? I seem to vaguely remember it’s something fun.” <br/><br/>“That bad? But you’re married to Magnus fucking Bane! You always look so radiant and happy together, when you visit us or go on trips.” <br/><br/>“We’re still in love and we have fun together. I’m just… aging and I don’t like it. Being Consul is not easy. I tried to make it easy. Keyword: tried.” Alec said, sounding unimpressed with his plight. “The body taps out first.” <br/><br/>“Come on, bro. You’re fifty-two, not ninety-two. Mundanes get a faster car and start fucking people who could be their kids at this age. It’s not the end.” <br/><br/>“It’s easy for you to say, angel boy. Your physiology was always extraordinary. I barely kept up.” <br/><br/>“Well, I still love you, salt and pepper temples or not.” <br/><br/>“I love you too. I’m glad I get to keep you.” <br/><br/>He didn’t judge and he didn't ask questions. Life, again, gave him another chance to fix things with Jace before it’s curtains for him too. <br/><br/>Alec poured two glasses of whisky, being generous with the amber liquid. One for him, one for Jace. They sat and talked, catching up but avoiding the real question. <br/><br/><em>How Jace died.</em> <br/><br/>As the whisky took over him and warmed him from within, Alec didn't think to ask and Jace didn't offer up the information. <br/><br/>When the first glass was empty, Alec was the one who made the suggestion. <br/><br/>“You said you could possess me. Wanna try it, so you can feel the whisky too?” <br/><br/>Jace smiled slowly. <br/><br/>“I knew it. You couldn’t wait to have me back inside you.” He teased, noting with great delight he could still make Alec blush. <br/><br/>“You have no idea. You don’t know how hard it was to play the innocent virgin, to make myself do… stuff with Magnus.”<br/><br/>“Why the fuck did you keep up the lie, Alec?” <br/><br/>“I thought it was how it had to be! I thought I was protecting us both. I didn’t want to be found and deruned. Exiled.”<br/><br/>“I would have risked that. If I could have you.” Jace said. “Fuck the law.”<br/><br/>“We wouldn’t have survived, Jace. We’re not trained to live among mundanes. To be mundane ourselves. What would we have done to make money? All we can do is fight and kill.” <br/><br/>“Martial arts instructors? Mixed martial artists fighting for money? Hitmen? Fuck, Starbucks baristas? We’re both nice to look at, we could have gone into acting, modeling - you name it. I always had stupidly good luck. I would have found something. You could have been a stay at home husband.” <br/><br/>“I would have burned the house down on day one. It’s no use, Jace. I fucked up. You’re dead because of me, and I don’t really wanna live, but also, I feel like if I were to off myself, Magnus and the kids would suffer and I can't justify that. Not that much though, since they’re immortal and I’m not. And that angers me too. Why did I marry a warlock and then adopt more warlocks?” <br/><br/>“Because you have the selfishness of a Golden Retriever and you are a well of love who never thinks of himself too.” <br/><br/>Alec sighed at Jace's words. He was right, he knew it, and it hurt. <br/><br/>“Hey, wanna do it before the whisky takes too much air?” He deflected. <br/><br/>Jace disappeared from next to him on the sofa, and in the next few seconds, Alec felt the warm comfort that used to be the parabatai bond and Jace’s soul inside him fill him anew. <br/><br/>But this time, it was different. Stronger. Brighter. <br/><br/>Having Jace inside him like this was different and more intense than any sense of joining sex had ever given him, and even the parabatai bond paled in comparison. <br/><br/>He felt tears roll down his cheeks as he realised he had never been whole. He had been walking around all his life, an open wound, a severed limb not knowing it was meant to fit into a body. <br/><br/><em>Whisky, please?</em><br/><br/>He started drinking from the second glass, welcoming the way the alcohol sedated his reason and annihilated the last of his defenses. He no longer cared about anything, besides the feeling of Jace inside him. <br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/>Magnus notices the change in his husband at Jace’s send-off ceremony. For someone who was always so emotional and irrationally enmeshed with his parabatai, Alec seems downright cynical about attending Jace’s ceremony. <br/><br/>Magnus watches his husband get dressed in front of the full length mirror, not stopping his fiddling with the garments until they sit perfectly. He is smiling as though he is going on a date with a new lover. <br/><br/>Jace’s body was recovered from the Seine after his successfully completed mission. It was assumed that some demon venom might have poisoned him without his knowledge or that something else happened that led to his tragic death. <br/><br/>At any rate, Consul Lightwood-Bane, the surviving parabatai, insisted that no autopsy be carried out, invoking his own grief as a reason. <br/><br/>Magnus is absolutely certain Jace took his own life. He doesn’t know why, and he wouldn’t know how to defend his theory if confronted, but something deep inside him keeps nudging him. He has the wisdom not to bring it up with his husband, who seems to be in deep denial and not ready to deal with the loss. <br/><br/>But then, Alec becomes more distant and withdrawn. <br/><br/>He starts spending whole week-ends away, at his office, or doing hell knows what on his own in the mundane world. He trains ridiculously much, like he used to when he was a teen, even though his body is no longer willing to keep up. <br/><br/>And sometimes, when he thinks Magnus isn’t paying attention, he has whole imaginary conversations by himself. <br/><br/>Years pass and Magnus worries more and more. <br/><br/>Sometimes, he thinks things are better and he is getting his husband back. But then he will catch Alec dancing by himself in his office or getting drunk and laughing at stuff only he can hear. </p><p>Alec is also unfazed when he catches a mundane disease that his angel blood doesn’t protect him against. It’s one of those bugs the mundanes made in a laboratory while playing God, and no magic or any known cure in the Shadow World can fight it. <br/><br/>Most mundanes just have a month-long cold and then shake it off, with more or less devastating lasting effects. <br/><br/>But in Alec, the disease spreads to his lungs and by the time two weeks passed, Alec is in sepsis and a very worried Catarina tells Magnus he might not make it. <br/><br/>Despite having a high fever and bouts of unconsciousness, Alec is suspiciously calm and in a good mood. He’s coughing and peeing blood, but he doesn’t let that stop him from spending time with the kids and saying goodbye to them on his own terms. <br/><br/>Magnus is worried sick at this point and he no longer dares to sleep at night, worrying that any moment might be Alec’s last. <br/><br/>It happens one night, after a particularly nasty bout of coughing, when Alec finally managed to settle for sleep. Before the coughing started, he was able to tell Magnus that since Jace’s death he’d had his parabatai with him at all times. That he feels guilty for abandoning Jace as soon as he got his own happiness and that Jace stayed behind to wait for him. <br/><br/>Magnus surprises himself by not being as generous as the situation demands. Sure, Alec isn’t alone in death and he’s not scared of the actual dying thanks to Jace. But it stings that in the end their love, their family, their bubble of happiness were not what gave Alec his strength. Magnus feels selfish for, in the end, still losing to Jace. <br/><br/>He’s known for years that Jace and Alec had a <em> thing </em> ; he couldn’t prove how deep it went, but he definitely saw the way they looked at each other. They were not the first parabatai pair Magnus had known in his life, but they were the first who touched like lovers do. And getting to know Alec and his profound disdain for everyone who was not Jace only consolidated Magnus’ suspicion that he was not, by any stretch, the most special person in Alec’s world. Sure, he was tolerated better than others and at some point he noticed Alec decided to love him. But every time they made love, to Magnus it felt like Jace was right there with them, laughing at him. However, he chose not to be petty about the whole thing, at least not to his husband’s face. He got to walk away with the prize. Alec had chosen him, publicly and intimately. Rubbing it in Jace’s face was a very low move, in which he only indulged very seldom. <br/><br/>Hearing Alec take his last breath still hurts immensely and leaves Magnus a crying wreck. No matter how much he tells himself he is a warlock, an immortal being unharmed by the trials of a short existence, he cannot command his own heart not to mourn. </p><p>Another chapter ended. It’s time for Magnus to take his memories and his children and move on.<br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/>The Lady of Angels examines the two souls before her. <br/><br/>“What am I going to do with you, children? You’ve been so very naughty. The Heavenly Father won’t like what you’ve done.” <br/><br/>Alec and Jace stand before her, in a court filled with all the angels and the saints, still holding hands, the way they did when they first arrived to the Silver City. </p><p>“Perhaps, if there is someone, other than me, to speak in your favour, then you’ll be shown mercy.” She says. “Angels! And you, revered saints. Who will rise and speak to save these two souls?”<br/><br/>Alec and Jace turn to face the court. <br/><br/>One by one, every angel and every saint stands. They see everyone from their books. Saint George, with his legendary spear and his shining armour. Raziel. The archangels, in their blood-red capes and with their nine pairs of wings. Lucifer is there as well, in full regalia, his gorgeous white wings on display. And even he stands. <br/><br/>(the end)</p><p> </p><p>
  
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, now that we established everyone in Heaven ships Jalec, please consider leaving some kudos and a comment<br/>🖤🖤🖤</p></blockquote></div></div>
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